Artist's Conception of TW Hydrae (IMAGE)

Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Artist's Conception of TW Hydrae

Caption

This artist's conception illustrates what we would see if we could zoom in on the TW Hydrae system. We are viewing the star nearly pole-on, where streamers of gas from the surrounding protoplanetary disk funnel onto the star. Research shows that this growth process, also known as accretion, is clumpy and episodic. By studying TW Hydrae we can learn what our sun was like when it was only 10 million years old.

Credit

David A. Aguilar (CfA)

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